Book Fight

We're off this week for the holidays, but we're releasing this Patreon-only episode from September, in which we discussed THE DEAL, a sexy campus romance novel by Elle Kennedy.

If you like this episode, you can get one like it every single month for just five bucks. Check out all our bonus content at our Patreon page

Direct download: BFAfterDark_TheDeal.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

It's that special time of year again, folks. When your beloved Book Fight hosts take a break from all the very serious literary talk and dive into a sometimes-cheesy, sometimes-infuriating, always-entertaining Christmas book. In past years we've read books by Debbie Macomber, Janet Evanovich, and even Glenn Beck. This year we're checking out a book by the "queen of the beach read," Elin Hilderbrand, who a few years ago branched out with a series of books set around the holidays.

For this episode, we read the first of Hilderbrand's winter books, which introduced us to the Quinn family. Kelley Quinn owns an inn on Nantucket that he might have to sell. His second wife, Mitzi, has been carrying on an affair with the man who dresses up as Santa Claus at the inn's annual holiday party. His oldest son, Patrick, might be headed to prison for insider trading. His daughter Ava is feeling lukewarm about her boyfriend, and his middle son Nathaniel is about to propose to a hot French lady. Oh, and his youngest son might be dead in Afghanistan.

We'll be taking our usual end-of-year hiatus, BUT we'll have a special bonus episode next week for our Patreon subscribers. We read a second, much more ridiculous holiday book, about knitting vampires, and we can't wait to tell you all about it. To get that episode, and our other bonus content--including monthly episodes of Book Fight After Dark, and episodes in our advice series, Reading the Room--all you have to do is chip in $5 a month, which helps support the show and keeps our regular episodes free.

Direct download: Ep307_Christmas2019.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

We've spent this fall season looking at some of the best stories to teach in creative writing workshops. It's our last week, and we're talking flash fiction. Definitions of flash vary, but generally speaking the term seems to apply to short stories of fewer than 1,000 words. We discuss our approaches toward teaching flash fiction generally, and then we dive into a few specific pieces: "What Happened to the Phillips?" by Tyrese Coleman; Jacob Guajardo's "Good News Is Coming"; "When It's Human and When It's Dog" by Amy Hempel; and two short pieces by Joy Williams.

If you like the show and would like more Book Fight in your life, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For $5/month, you'll get access to regular bonus episodes, including monthly episodes of Book Fight After Dark, where we read some of the world's weirdest--and steamiest!--novels. We've also recently begun a new series of Patreon-only mini-episodes called Reading the Room, in which we offer advice on how to navigate awkward, writing-related social situations.

Direct download: Ep306_FlashFiction.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

This week, we're discussing stories told from multiple points of view. It can be difficult enough to successfully capture a single character's consciousness on the page, which makes our first story pick especially impressive: "The Casual Car Pool," by Katherine Bell, which originally appeared in the fall 2005 issue of Ploughshares. Our second pick takes a different tack to exploring multiple characters, keeping a distanced, fly-on-the-wall perspective: J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."

We talk about how we approach point of view when teaching creative writing classes, particularly when it comes to the varieties of third person narration. We also talk about the difficulty of writing from multiple points of view in a single story, and whether it's something we'd encourage or discourage our students from trying.

Also this week: one last trip into the NaNoWriMo forums!

If you like the show and would like more Book Fight in your life, consider subscribing to our Patreon. For $5/month, you'll get access to regular bonus episodes, including monthly episodes of Book Fight After Dark, where we read some of the world's weirdest--and steamiest!--novels. We've also recently begun a new series of Patreon-only mini-episodes called Reading the Room, in which we offer advice on how to navigate awkward, writing-related social situations.

Direct download: Ep305_MultiplePOVs.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 6:00am EDT

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